SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK (2012) movie review

Here is a self-help film.

I didn’t think they could do it.

I saw the Fighter (2010) by David O. Russell. I loved the performances, raw as the subject matter was. I still didn’t believe that Russell, as both filmmaker and screenwriter of this sweet one, could make us laugh.

I laughed and cried. Isn’t that why we go to the movies? I’m turned off by brutality and realism, especially together. I’m turned off by F-words. I think they make people sound unintelligent. But this went beyond the Friday Night Lights / Parenthood filming and drove its quirky far-past-the-Hunger Games-arena arrow straight into my heart.

While the every-film theme hinges on grief and daddy issues, prolonging the inevitable, this slices through straight to the therapy session. Oh, it is raw. It did earn its rating with language. But blast you Bradley with those blue eyes. You did it. You and your beautiful father, Robert De Niro, danced a savvy Jen Lawrence into a hopeful scenario…into what I believe you called a silver lining.